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Kickstarter URL: bit.ly/theleadersguide
EDIT: 1:05pm. I need to sign off for a bit. Thanks for asking such great questions. I'll try and stop by later in the day to pick up any stragglers that come in.
What's the fastest you've launched a startup?
This may sound pedantic, but it kind of depends on what you mean by "launch" and what you mean by "startup." If you take something like CapTable.io, it only took a few weeks to get the initial version up and running although most people probably don't consider it "launched" at all.
Are there examples of lean startup ideas going wrong or being misunderstood and leading startups straight to failure?
I would say the two most fatal misapplications are:
1. "up and to the right" disease. here you split-test everything and just do whatever moves the numbers. pretty soon you are selling porn or psychic hotlines.
2. "no vision, no problems" error. It's like trying to do science without a hypothesis. In lean startup we emphasize that people trying to predict the future are often wrong, so it's best to experiment and pivot as you learn. But some people interpret this to mean that the future is unknowable, there's no point in having any kind of vision, and you should just ship something and see what happens. the problem with this plan is you are guaranteed to succeed - at seeing what happens. after-the-fact rationalization will prevent any learning, because if you can't fail you can't learn. having a big expansive vision is really helpful because it provides lots of falsifiable hypotheses for testing.
3. "minimum viable crap" sloppy execution. Some people think MVP means just throw garbage at the wall and see what sticks, especially since the M makes people think lean startup is for doing something small. but the truth is if you're doing something small, you don't need MVP or lean startup. you only need an MVP if you're trying something large. further, part of the MVP process is to learn what customers actually value in terms of quality, so we can build something that they perceive as excellent. shipping crap isn't the goal, and people that go on TechCrunch with garbage and then claim "but it's an MVP!" are doing it wrong. the hard truth is that spending more time "perfecting" a product in the absence of feedback often makes the product worse, not better.
What's the fastest you've launched a startup?
When I was working on IMVU, we almost killed ourselves launching in only six months. At the time, we thought that was pretty impressive because our previous startup had taken almost 5 years. But by today's standards, we were incredibly slow. This may sound pedantic, but it kind of depends on what you mean by "launch" and what you mean by "startup." If you take something like CapTable.io, it only took a few weeks to g…
Why do you think that 'the establishment' is so hard to innovate within?
Unfortunately, not all sources of variability are bad. Think about the antibiotic craze as an analogy. It was a major discovery that bacteria cause disease. But it was also a major discovery that certain bacteria are beneficial. Loading up your system with antibiotics 24/7 is actually detrimental to long-term health, even though it's awfully helpful during an appendectomy.